1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of gaming, particularly to the field of card games (both physical and electronic) and particularly to the use of bets and side bets variations in games.
2. Background of the Art
The industry has attempted to use side bet and jackpot events to attract players to games and to keep players active in games for extended periods. It has been found to be extremely difficult to develop jackpot games for use with baccarat and blackjack that have a reasonable ability to develop large jackpots (e.g., over 100,000 wagering units, such as US dollars) and to provide a significant hit frequency with less than entire jackpots being awarded. Typically, jackpots identified with blackjack and baccarat games have maximum jackpot hit frequencies in the 1:50,000 range, so that jackpots rarely exceed 50,000 units. Particularly with networked games having many tables, low total jackpots do not attract as much play as jackpots in the 100,000 unit range (that is 100,000 times the amount of the side bet wager) and 500,000 range and even in excess of a million unit range. One reason for the inability of high jackpots to be reached is that all outcomes definable from three or four cards (the initial visible cards in blackjack and baccarat) occur with frequencies below the 1:50,000 range.
Published US Patent Application Document No. 20140309017 (LaDuca) discloses a method of playing a combined casino card game combining a standard casino card game with an optional In Between side bet that uses the same cards as played in the standard casino card game.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,926,421; 8,348,747; 8,147,316; and 7,758,411 and Published Applications Nos. 20060189365 (PokerTek) describe fully electronic tables with virtual playing cards, electronic wagering and even no live dealer. Multiple players have individual active screens displaying event outcomes and enabling wagers. U.S. Design Pat. No. D512,466 shows a table layout with individual player panels that individual player inputs on wagers and discards.
Published US Patent Application Documents Nos. 20120157193 and 20100130280 (Arezina) describe a multi-player gaming system that senses multiple simultaneous contacts on a surface of a gaming table, differentiating contacts by different players.
Other systems emphasize control of playing cards and reading playing card and hand ranks. Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20100019449 (Downs) describes a playing card delivery shoe is used in the play of the casino table card game of baccarat or blackjack or any game where cards are pulled one at a time from the shoe. The apparatus comprises a reader or an imager that scans lines bisecting the image at spaced intervals. Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20110275432 (Lutnick) describes an apparatus comprising: a machine readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that when executed causes a computing device to perform a method defining execution of a gaming event. Published US Patent Application Documents No. 20150087417 (George) describes a system for use in operating gaming tables within a gaming environment is described herein.
Published US Patent Application Document No. 20140370980 (Czyzewski) describes a gaming assemblies with a playing surface including at least one screen display. A system projects visual light on the screen display. A radiation source illuminates objects placed over the screen display.
A series of U.S. patents with a common inventor of Soltys (including by way of non-limiting examples, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,575,234; 7,510,194; 7,427,234; 7,390,256; 7,317,615; 7,222,852; 7,011,309; 6,991,544; 6,964,612; 6,857,961; 6,758,751; 6,712,696; and 6,688,979) describes various components and methods attempting to configure and establish a more automated gaming table.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,915,786 (Baerlocher) discloses a plurality of simultaneously, substantially simultaneously or sequentially played primary games, wherein a designated triggering event in at least one of the games causes the gaming device to change, modify, supplement, add to, activate or otherwise influence the paytable of at least another game.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,613,650; 8,403,740; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,109,821 (Kovacs) provides a gaming system including a central controller, a central display which includes a plurality of display segments and a plurality player stations.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,333,657 (Nelson) describes a system that changes the focal point of a display device at different points in time to assist the player in focusing on different simultaneously or concurrently played games at different points in time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,275,411 (Breeding) discloses a position of start indicator for Pai Gow poker games where a hand-position for first hands dealt is randomly indicated by a 7-segment display for positions 1-7.
It is desirable for the functional ability of the game table to contribute to specialty or carnival wagering games. In particular, these technologies (including those in the Related Applications data section, herein), when providing side bets for progressive jackpots using physical playing cards, may have variations in probabilities of winning outcomes as playing cards are exhausted, enabling some level of card counting to be used to determine advantages in gaming outcomes. All patent literature cited herein is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein.